Posts Tagged ‘rock band’

Well it can be, if you don’t have the confidence to make an utter fool of yourself. But technically without the bravery of standing on stage, you’ll never get to live out your rock ‘n’ roll dream.

When the first Guitar Hero came out into the mainstream market, people of all ages rushed to buy the mini-guitar and game to rock out to a list of great pieces of music. It brought a lot of smiles to a lot of people.

Wannabe musicians of today afraid of going out in the real world to learn their instrument of choice were using video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band to teach important musical steps like rhythm, and the frustrations of hammering that last three frets to make that ‘solo’ sound really mad.

We’ve even had DJ Hero, incorporating the idea of mixing two tracks together to create a nice mash-up, which I’m sure got a lot of people rushing out to buy new decks and scratch the hell out of Rihanna.

While we do have Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock coming out soon, there’s also Rock Band 3. By now we’ve been swamped with plastic instruments in our living rooms for these games, but when playing the drums on ‘Expert’ difficulty meant you were essentially learning how to play drums, Rock Band 3 is introducing a mini-keyboard.

When a problem comes along, give it a head-butt.

The first prototype looks like a keytar, which can be strapped around your shoulder, or placed on your lap.

The first thing that popped into my mind was the potential of this being a great teaching tool for musicians out there wanting a gaming incentive added to music lessons.

The second thing that popped into my mind is the amount of real keytars that will be sold once it’s released.

Remember Devo? Whip It, with the red culinder hats, cracking whips, cowboys and safety reading glasses, was all about the keytar (although the woman in the blue dress and the bowl of cream never settled well).

How about Herbie Hancock? Rockit still gets me grinning with a cheesy smile.

Is it ready to come back though? Who knows, it could very well be getting piano players a chance to rock out to Bach again.